Easter Week

(Elder Slade)

This week was a blur. To be honest I don't remember much of what happened. We had 24 member lessons, 8 of which were yesterday. But miracles do happen! On Wednesday we found a new person to teach, and we put two people on date for baptism! Especially when you we are stuck inside all the time, it's good to see some fruits of our labors. Another highlight this week, was when someone we are teaching called us persistent and cute. That's two compliments I'll take anyday.

Easter was amazing this week. Some member gave us a lot of candy and food (story of my life) but that's not what made it great. What made it great was reading about the life of Jesus Christ in the scriptures and sharing about him and his Atonement in all the lessons we taught. President Nelson said, "Jesus Christ came to pay a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.” he died for each of us. So that we all might live again. Even though hard things happen, even though our futures might be uncertain, or loved ones might pass away, the hope of Easter is that all things that are unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

The amount of love Jesus Christ has for us and individuals is hard to comprehend. I hope you are able to feel that love. It reminds me of a book, The Count of Monte Cristo. The main character says he doesn't believe in God, and a priest responds "That doesn't matter, because he believes in you."

I want you all to know that I love you all and so does Jesus Christ.

How did the Potato Horse run?

It scalloped! Sorry. I'm running out of good jokes. Though some might say, they were never good in the first place. Which I am sincerely offended by. Just kidding.

Pictures (Sorry, it wasn't too eventful of a week, so there's no many):

1. My mom made us some masks, so if I get Corona, it's her fault. Jk, I love you mom!

2. Out on our run

3. On P-days and before I go to bed, I am learning how to play the guitar

April 14 2020

(Elder Petersen)

So this week was a lot of the same thing as previous weeks since we were quarantined but something that made this week more interesting and exciting was us having two lessons this week with a non-member named Francis. We have been teaching her for about two months now and she just went through her baptismal interview yesterday and passed. Her baptismal date is for this Saturday so this week is going to be a pretty good week.

One experience that I have had this week was making making pizza from scratch dough and everything. We don't even have a bread mixer so I had fun kneading the dough by myself. It has been interesting being quarantined and having to do all of our missionary work over technology.

Quarantine

(Hermana Ellsworth)

I am sorry for the lack of emails these past couple of weeks but I decided that I would go through and write down what happened.

March 12th Church was canceled. That was my second day in Ponce, Puerto Rico and I was so excited to meet the members but the canceled church seemed like a downer.

March 13th we were told that some of the ports in Puerto Rico were closing in order to prevent COVID-19 from coming to the island. This was my third day in Ponce and the third day of the transfer. In Puerto Rico if anything out of the normal happens everyone flocks to the stores to stock up on food and so we got permission from our President to go to Sam's Club and stock up on 2 weeks of food so off we went and you guessed it, they were out of Toilet Paper. BUT we did get a good amount of delicious food in case we needed to go on a lock down.

March 14th is when the restrictions due to COVID-19 started. We were told not to knock on doors and to only leave the house if there were confirmed appointments. It seemed reasonable and they said that we could still have baptisms and what not.

March 15th We had a wonderful worship meeting with the Hermanas. We went over to the church and had 2 hours of wonderful studies. Come Follow me was wonderful. We had President Hinckley and Elder Oaks give some grand talks about women and the priesthood. And then we went home and the member of the bishopric came by and gave us the sacrament. I really did love the way we did church. We even made our own handouts.

March 16th is when Quarantine really started. We were told not to leave our houses and to prepare for at least 21 days inside. There was a curfew in Puerto Rico where if you were caught outside after 7:00PM it was a jail fine. We were allowed to still go outside to get emergency items at the Walgreens next door.

To keep ourselves sane we decided during our free hour of the day we would reenact a book of Mormon pictures every day.

March 17th We were told to clean EVERYTHING we would have competitions on who could have the cleanest apartment and everything was deep cleaned. We were also kept very busy calling members and setting up facetime meetings and looking for old interested people. And also reenacting more Book of Mormon pictures. Our next one was Nefi.

March 18th Also a lot of deep cleaning and we got a wonderful reference from Hermana Pineda and we were able to start teaching Ana. Ana started reading the Book of Mormon as the quarantine started. She was looking for comfort and opened to Amla 32 and started reading about Faith. She really felt like God was reaching out to her in those moments. Ana was incredible to teach and I looked forward to it everyday.

Also being inside we started to slowly lose our tan lines and as a ginger I don't really tan all that much as is but here are some Puerto Rican Sister missionary shoe tan lines and our Book of Mormon reenactment picture for this day.

March 19th We got a call from President Smart that Said Hermana Doxey was to return home early. She is the sister in the blue skirt in the picture above. 10 minutes later after crying we got a call from Hermana Smart that said that Elder Renlund called the area 70 and said that no Puerto Rico San Juan missionary was to be sent home. IT WAS THE NEWS WE WANTED!! We finally felt safe knowing that we were going to continue our missions. Sadly though, we got another call from President that night and we were informed that Hermana Doxey would actually be going home because of the increased restrictions of travel laws. We packed her all up and sad goodbye through many tears.

Our Book of Mormon picture that day did not include our beloved Hermana Doxey.

March 20th A lot of the same things happened. We studied, we worked the best we could and we made some bomb Book of Mormon reenactments. Hermana Garcia really makes a fabulous captain Moroni.   We also increased our yoga skills for our morning exercises and gave Hermana Schearrer cornrows in her hair.

March 21st Hermana Schearrer and I completed 14 months on the mission and Ana the lady that we were teaching over facetime was doing really well

Now, March 22nd to March 28th was just a really weird time. We got a call that we were to be evacuated and to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. So we lived out of our suitcases for this whole week as we waited for our flight plans to go through. We had canceled flight after canceled flight. We got missionaries to Atlanta and then more canceled flights. Apparently during a world crisis it's hard to get flights. After some painful waiting we were finally able to get a flight for some of the missionaries and I just happened to be on it. Hermana Schearrer and I had to say goodbye to Hermana Garcia as she waited for Honduras to open up their borders for her to get home. It was really hard to leave Puerto Rico and to say goodbye to that island that will forever have my heart.  

When we got to Atlanta we found out that our flight to Salt Lake city got canceled and we were to overnight in Atlanta. When we got to the Hotel we needed an "adult signature" for the card incase it didn't go through. We didn't really know what to do but then a member of the Church walked into the hotel saw 20 missionaries in need and just signed for our hotel rooms for us. A very much needed tender mercy. We got up the next morning at 4 am and headed off to Salt Lake city.

APRIL 1ST I was called by my stake president and was released as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I wish it was all a April Fools Joke but sadly my time as a missionary came to an end. It was the best 14.5 months of my life and I will always look back on it with fondness no matter how weird it ended due to Corona. I really do love being a missionary and I would encourage all youth who are able to go and serve. I saw so many miracles and so many blessings. I love Puerto Rico and I love the people there. I love my mission President and His wife and I know the Lord wanted me to be in Puerto Rico.

Hermana Madison Ellsworth :)

The Lord loves effort

(Elder Slade)

To the best Friends and Family a person could hope for, 

This week, you may have heard about the earthquake in Idaho. Our apartment currently has a 3 foot wide chasm in the middle of it. Elder Leavitt fell in during the quakings, but I (being the dashing hero that I am) managed to grab his hand just in time and pull him to safety. He only has two broken bones because of it. Lol Just kidding, none of that didn't happen! We actually didn't even feel the earthquake. However, around the same time, a giant lightning bolt hit a tree about 40 feet from our apartment. It was the loudest lightning bolt I ever heard, and it scared us half to death. We took a walk, and found that it demolished half of a tree, converting it to splinters. I'll include a picture.

You know, I thought being in isolation would be a lot worse than it actually has. I thought I would either die of boredom or get really bad cabin fever. Actually, it hasn't been that bad. I think the key is work and staying busy. This week we taught about 30 different lessons. Teaching that many lessons takes a toll out of you. You get pretty tired after that. It reminds me of my favorite quote this weekend from general conference (I loved General Conference by the way! So inspiring!) by Joy D. Jones. She said, "The Lord loves effort." I whole heartedly agree with that. That is truly the only way to progress. We are on this earth to gain experience and become more like our savior Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven. Considering that they are perfect, and we are...well, a lot less than perfect, having success and happiness in this life will take effort. Don't be afraid of putting energy into something, for that is the secret ingredient that makes all things better (I sound like a cheesy Kong Fu Panda right now, but it's true!). Relationships are more meaningful when you work to make it better. Your physical health is improved when you put in the time to exercise. School or work or being quarantined at home is more rewarding when you do more than just drift by and long for the day to be over. If you're struggling right now, I would invite you to evaluate what your putting your effort into. If nothing else, put your time and energy into something worthwhile, such as your family and friends.

I love you all. I hope you're doing alright! I pray for you often.

Joke: What did the philosopher potato say while swimming?

Answer: "I sink, therefore I yam!" A good old Descartes joke for those nerds out there. I'm sorry it's a really bad joke. I hope you'll forgive me for that one.

Pictures:

1. A new rule for missionaries is that we have to wear masks out in public. Yay. We look like dentists.

2. The demolished tree.

3. April Fool's day. Done got pranked.

4-5. My banana bread, which was super delicious by the way.

6. A beautiful day while taking a walk, so I decided to take a picture.

April 7 2020

(Elder Petersen)

So this week was a lot of the same boring routine as it has been for the last while. We were able this week to teach one of our investigators twice. Once on Tuesday, and once yesterday. While we were teaching her we felt the spirit even over the phone and we were guided to ask her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority on Tuesday and she said that she would so we left her with the invitation to think about and ask God when she should be baptized. When we met with her again yesterday, we had the impression to ask her -if she had not already thought about one- if she would prepare herself to be baptized on April 18th and she excepted the baptismal date! Other than that monumental occasion not much else happened this week.

You sound like a goat

(Elder Slade)

This was the first full week that we have been stuck in our apartment doing missionary work. For those of you who are wondering, we are allowed a 40 minute walk outside, and we also get an extra 30 minutes of exercise. So I'm not completely holed up inside, and in response to my last email, I probably won't get fat due to that extra exercise. In fact, the mission had a competition for the number of push ups you can do in a minute, and I got second place out of the Elders, with 70 push-ups. As Elder Leavitt might say, I'm getting a bad case of Swolliosis. My biceps are the size of grapefruits now! Just kidding. I'm still as thin as a twig, with arms like spaghetti noodles, but that 70 push-ups thing wasn't a lie. A funny story about our exercise time though, is that we went out for a run one night, and when we came back, the door was locked. We didn't have our phones, or keys. Elder Leavitt ended up climbing onto my back, ripping the screen out of our 2nd story window and finagling his way in. During this, a car drove into the parking lot, and I'm pretty sure he was staring at us, and thinking we were crazy. It was a good laugh though.

Since we've been quarantined, we've been starting to embrace our culinary awesomeness during meals. I made some fresh pico de gallo (soooooo good!). Elder Leavitt made some sushi (interesting but not bad). We also made some spaghetti (super delicious). Today I plan on making banana bread. Hopefully it turns out alright. The title comes from a video Elder Leavitt and I filmed of us singing a song for someone we are teaching. When I was to come in, I had trouble searching for the right note, and he busted out laughing and he said I sounded like a goat, or a lawn mower. It was hilarious. Maybe I'll show the video to you when I get home. It's a little too embarrassing now, because he was right. I did sound like a goat.

We've spent most of our time calling, texting, and setting up video chat lessons. We've been teaching a lot. This week we found 3 people to teach over technology! 2 of the people we haven't met before. We went through the contacts in out sim card and called people we didn’t know, and that's how we found those 2. The other was the mother of Caden, the kid we baptized about a month ago. The work is still happening! It's at times like these that I'm so thankful for Elder Leavitt. He is such a good missionary. He works really hard, and he keeps a light mood so that we don't go crazy in here. I am truly blessed to have him as my companion right now. He is awesome!

Next week is general conference, or for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a time where the leaders and our prophet of our church speak to us. I'm so excited! I'm more excited than a tornado in a trailer park (as Tow Mater might say from Cars). It's really a blessing to have a prophet on earth that receives revelation from God to guide this church. It's been an awesome witness to see how through recent changes, Russel M. Nelson (our prophet) has prepared us for this time of corona craziness. I know that he is a prophet and receives word from God. I also know that we can receive revelation from God as we pray. As Russel M. Nelson said in a recent video he put out, I would ask you to try to "Hear Him", or to hear God in your own lives. I know that if you put in the effort, he will manifest himself to you in your life either through His Spirit, or through the tender mercies you see in your life.

I love you all!

Interesting fact: the world’s largest potato producing country is China. Of course China is pretty much the largest producing country of everything, but I thought it was interesting. Has anyone heard about the conspiracy that China started the Coronavirus? I think it's silly. But, if it is true, it probably spawned from a bad batch of radioactive potatoes or something. That would make since to me.

Pictures:

1. About to go out and run, and get real swoll!

2. Salsa

3. Elder Leavitt making sushi

4. Decided to take a picture

April 1, 2020

(Elder Petersen)

So this week has been pretty boring compared to other weeks in my mission because we just got completely quarantined. The highlight of this week was that transfers happened this last Wednesday so I got a new companion his name is Elder Davis and he is pretty cool. I am not enjoying being completely quarantined it has incredibly boring having to sit inside twenty-four seven right now. The only way that we are able to have any outside interaction is by calling people over the phone. Other than that they took our car away because they wanted to give all of the leadership cars so that they can fairy people around. sorry this letter is so boring this week hope next week will be better!